


The same me, since the day I was born

by honooko



Category: VIXX
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Implied Neo, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 06:15:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18986923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honooko/pseuds/honooko
Summary: Hongbin got a little drunk and a little emotional last night. It's okay. This is what happened next.





	The same me, since the day I was born

**Author's Note:**

> Hongbin got a little drunk and a little emotional on his twitch stream, but he came back and finished happy. This is what I choose to believe happened next. You don't really need more background than that.

Nobody said it, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out why everyone showed up on a Monday afternoon with food and a movie. Jaehwan and Sanghyuk had managed to coax him from his room once the headache wore off and promptly dragged him into Sanghyuk’s. Wonshik appeared in expensive sweats and a fruit basket on one arm, followed shortly after by Taekwoon with the latest Doraemon movie, of all things.

Maybe _because_ nobody said it, Hongbin didn’t really feel like he needed to go over it all again. He could just accept their comfort and know they knew—and leave it there. It wasn’t like repeating himself would change his stance. Being kind of drunk and then kind of sad wasn’t a crime, and being honest about being sad wasn’t either. 

Wonshik cried when the movie hit an emotional turn, which gave everyone the opportunity to start throwing pillows at him and screaming about mosquito infestations. Taekwoon slipped away, probably to find food to steal, and everyone paused the movie to check on Wikipedia that it wasn’t going to be super depressing. Considering Taekwoon had brought it, there was actually a surprisingly high chance that it was, and as Jaehwan put it, “Who the fuck wants to sob brokenly over Doraemon in their mid-to-late-twenties?”

“Daeguni,” Sanghyuk pointed out.

“ _Besides_ him,” Jaehwan insisted.

“I don’t _want_ to cry,” Wonshik insisted through a handful of tissues. “I just _am_.” Hongbin patted his arm.

“We know, we know,” he said. “Hey, maybe you should get a tissue company to endorse you, make a little money off your suffering.”

Wonshik looked like he was actually considering it seriously when Taekwoon called out to him from the doorway. Hongbin looked back over his shoulder, only to be summoned by a little handwave; he climbed out of the bed and followed Taekwoon back into the kitchen.

Then Taekwoon handed him his phone, call already connected. Hongbin looked at it and felt strangely conflicted; there was only one person it could be.

“Hi hyung,” he said quietly.

“Hi Binnie,” Hakyeon said, gentle and warm. Stupidly, he felt the hot prick of tears in his eyes; he blinked and rubbed at them, trying to push it off. It wasn’t even like this was the first time they’d talked since he left, just—Hakyeon’s voice was the one voice he’d wished he could hear the night before. The voice of reassurance and reason. Judgment-free.

“I’m fine,” Hongbin told him firmly. 

“I know you are,” Hakyeon told him. “You’re a grown man, you make your own choices and you make them to the best of your ability.”

“I didn’t really choose the… sad part,” Hongbin admitted.

“Isn’t that the part you really wanted to talk about though?” Hakyeon asked. “It seems like everyone has been asking you, but you haven’t answered them the way you wanted to.”

“I just—I can be sad and still be okay,” Hongbin explained. Taekwoon had stepped back towards the chaos as soon as Hongbin started speaking, granting them a degree of privacy. “I’m—I’m allowed to be sad sometimes.”

“Of course you are,” Hakyeon said. “You’re human.”

“I am,” Hongbin agreed. “I’m human, the same human I’ve always been. Being an idol, being—a public identity, that doesn’t make me less human. People don’t get it, they don’t look at the way they talk to us and think about us as humans.”

“It’s a lot to take,” Hakyeon added. “Especially for just one person.”

“…Are you worried?” Hongbin asked him after a moment, feeling a clench of anxiety. Hakyeon had so many other things to be worrying about—adding one more, selfishly, bothered him.

“About you?” Hakyeon clarified. “No, not now. Unless you think I should be?”

“No, you shouldn’t,” Hongbin told him firmly. “I was sad, but I wasn’t like. Depressed.”

“I figured. Plus, you have everyone you need around you already.”

“…Not quite everyone,” Hongbin admitted. He wasn’t going to say he missed Hakyeon. Not tonight, not when he was still kind of soft and emotional and _honest._

“I miss you too, Binnie,” Hakyeon said anyway. It was like a hug, but words, and Hongbin took a second to let it hold him there. The quiet jolted his memory and he turned around, looking for Taekwoon.

“Damn, don’t you only get like ten minutes?” he asked. “I’ll find Taekwoon, hang on.” He shuffled back towards Sanghyuk’s room as quickly as socked feet on a bare floor could; Taekwoon spotted him coming out of the kitchen and met him halfway.

“No, it’s okay, we already said what we needed,” Hakyeon informed him as he jogged. Then after a beat, he admitted, “Actually, I’ve got like thirty more seconds if he’s right there.”

“He’s here,” Hongbin said. “Handing it over.”

“Thank you!” Hakyeon said just before Taekwoon took it. 

“How many?” Taekwoon asked. Whatever number he was given must have been brief, because he simply said, “I love you more. Goodnight.” Then he hung up.

“You… love him more than he loves you?” Hongbin filled in with half a cringe.

“No,” Taekwoon said. “I love him more than yesterday.”

“Oh.”

Taekwoon put his phone in his pocket and turned back towards their friends, but Hongbin felt the need to stop him, grabbing his elbow.

“Thank you,” Hongbin said, looking at the floor. “I know you don’t get much time…”

“I don’t,” Taekwoon agreed. “But I also know that sometimes, someone needs him more than I do. Also, Minyul has been trying to teach me something he learned at preschool.”

Hongbin stared at him, baffled as to where this was going.

“Sharing is caring, Hongbinnie,” Taekwoon informed him gravely.

“I can’t believe it’s taken you so long to work that out that a four-year-old has to teach it to you,” Hongbin replied. Taekwoon laughed, then slung an arm over his shoulder to walk him to the room where everyone was waiting.

“Next time you want to drink and be sad, come over,” Taekwoon told him. “We can write song lyrics Jelpi won’t let us use because ‘nihilism isn’t a concept’.”

Hongbin laughed. As they returned to the scene of Wonshik’s emotional breakdown over a Japanese robot cat from the future, he felt a warm rush roll through him. 

Everyone he needed, right when he needed them.

Everyone.


End file.
